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HARPER'S WEEKLY.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1862.

THE
STATE ELECTION.

THE contest for Governor in this
State possesses an importance scarcely second to that of the contest in the
field on the banks of the Potomac or in the plains of
Kentucky. A singular chance has arrayed the two
parties who divide the North squarely and fairly against each other.

HORATIO SEYMOUR is a man of large political
experience and decided ability. He has been Governor. His integrity has not been
questioned. Whatever be the character of his leading supporters, his own is
without stain. He presents himself as a war Democrat. He is in favor of the
prosecution of the war. Though he rather intimates, in his speech accepting the
nomination, that the responsibility for the war rests with the North, not the
South—in other words, that it was the sheep's fault he was so tender, and the
wolf couldn't help eating him—he is ready to overlook the initial fault
committed by the Northern people, and to accept their cause with all its
demerits.

JAMES S. WADSWORTH is a farmer of
large means: born rich, handsomely educated, now a millionaire. Inexperienced in
political life, he first loomed into notice when, fifteen months ago, he
chartered and loaded a steamer with provisions for our troops, then beleaguered
at
Annapolis. Since then he has become a General,
and it is charged against him that, while under the command of McClellan, he
spoke and wrote in such wise as to bring his commander into disrepute; that he
disapproved of his policy, and was so reckless of discipline as to sneer
publicly and privately at his being in command of the army. For the rest,
General Wadsworth has fairly described himself as having been chosen by a
Convention of men who were in earnest because they knew that he was in earnest.

If it can be substantiated that
General Wadsworth is an enemy of
General McClellan, and that while acting under
his orders he worked with the politicians who were bent on undermining and
ruining him, and wrote and spoke publicly against his commanding officer, he
will lose a large number of votes which he would otherwise have polled. At the
hour we write an immense majority of the people of New York believe that General
McClellan is not only an able General, but is the best General we have for the
command of the Army of the Potomac, and that he has been hardly used by the
politicians at
Washington. It the McClellan issue be fairly
raised, and Wadsworth be placed before the people as the champion of the
anti-McClellan party, he will lose not only the entire Democratic, but a large
proportion of the Republican vote.

With regard to Seymour a new
issue has been raised by the President's proclamation of freedom to the slaves.
Is Horatio Seymour ready to stand upon that proclamation? If he is, and if
Wadsworth can be identified, fairly and honestly, with the politicians who
hampered

But if Seymour can not stand upon
the President's proclamation, it will become the clearest duty of every loyal
citizen to vote against him, and to see to it that for the honor of the State of
New York he is defeated by an overwhelming majority.

In time of peace honest men
divide on questions of minor importance, and of local or temporary policy,
without involving any question of their loyalty. In time of war there can be but
two parties—the party in favor of the country, and the party in favor of the
enemy. Any man who opposes the Government on fundamental questions of public
policy, at the present crisis, is a public enemy and an ally of the rebels.
There may have been, and there may be, many points upon which honest citizens
may differ with the President. But this is not the time to discuss them. The
question now is, whether the nation shall be saved or lost? Those who are in
favor of its being saved will support the recognized Government even in measures
which they do not heartily approve. Those who are in favor of its being lost
will assail the Government by opposing its policy, and thus crippling its
efforts to maintain the Union.

On and after 1st January next the
war will be carried on not only for the restoration of the Union, but for the
protection of over three million black men in the enjoyment of liberty. Can
Horatio Seymour heartily help to prosecute the war on this basis? If he can not,
then he is an enemy of the United States, and if New York elects him, it will be
a triumph for
Jefferson Davis.

THE
LOUNGER.

THE PROCLAMATION.

THE
President's proclamation was discussed
elsewhere in this paper last week. But every tongue that speaks or hand that
writes will have a word to say of an act which is in itself simply just, but
which in its results becomes sublime.

Nearly four millions of innocent
human beings, against every instinct of justice and humanity, and in direct
contradiction of the fundamental principle of this Government, are held as
slaves and counted as property by the local law
of certain States. The owners of these slaves, foreseeing that the natural
increase of population in a nation of laboring men would limit a system of
forced labor which can not live except by directly competing with free labor,
and knowing that the limitation of slavery is its death, rose in rebellion
against the Government of the people, hoping either to win a separation or to
fatigue the people into granting a perpetual guarantee for slavery.

Meanwhile the system itself, as
it was the source of the war, became its strength. It supplies the armies which
fight against the country. It is more the strength of the rebellion than the
cannon and powder and ball which mangle and
murder the loyal citizens who oppose it with arms. The Government of the United
States does not hesitate to seize and appropriate all those guns and that
ammunition, and to take the lives of those who use them just as fast and as far
as it can. And in obedience to the same necessity, and acting by the same right,
it will destroy the assistance which slavery gives to the rebellion just as fast
and as far as possible.

The act is in itself a military
measure, dictated by common sense. In its scope it is a national purification.
Its temporary intention is the maintenance of the Union and the Government. Its
ultimate result is permanent peace and prosperity, founded upon the only
principle that can secure either. Had the slaveholders trusted to political and
constitutional means, they could not have evaded but they could have delayed the
result. When they rushed to arms they gave the Government, under the
Constitution, the right and the power to strike the system directly. And after
due warning, after the ripening of the popular conviction that the blow must
fall, at the very moment when it would tell most truly, the word is spoken, the
honor of the nation is pledged, and the rebellion, and despotic Europe
sympathizing with it, see the religious earnestness of a people which moves
gradually, wisely, irresistibly to its triumph.

Like the old statue of the God
which had one foot of marble and one of clay, so stood the Union, strong with
its marble foot of Liberty, weak with the clay of Slavery. Failing and breaking
from that weakness, the great statue itself tottered to its fall. But from the
clouds and terror of that wild upheaval it emerges radiant, supreme, steadfast
forever, both feet of spotless marble.

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL WILDER DWIGHT.

AT the dinner of the Phi Beta
Kappa Society of Harvard University, in July last, after General Devens had made
a stirring speech, and Holmes, in a clear, ringing voice, had chanted the fiery
music of his battle-lyric, "Never or Now," and the other speakers had all obeyed
the imperial impulse of the hour, there was a sudden and loud call for a young
man who was trying to escape from the hall —the only retreat he ever willingly
attempted—and at last, yielding to the summons, he turned and fronted the
company with a bright, ardent smile, while, amidst the shouts and thunders of
applause, the President introduced him as Lieutenant-Colonel Wilder Dwight, a
prisoner of war, at large upon his parole.

The heroic aspect, the burning
words, the passionate appeal he made for honor and liberty, we shall none of us
forget. And, now that he shall be seen no more, we remember him as he stood
there, the express image of that dauntless daring,

that blithe earnestness, that
religious faith, by which alone the great victory is to be won.

At the beginning of the war
Lieutenant-Colonel Dwight devoted himself, with the aid of friends, to raising
the Massachusetts Second Regiment, of which he went into the field as Major. The
regiment was assigned to
Banks's division, and, with the exception of a
rapid march to cover the retreat from
Ball's Bluff, it remained inactive until the
advance into the Shenandoah Valley in the early spring. In the retreat from the
valley the regiment protected the rear, passing through a sharp engagement in
the streets of
Winchester, and Major Dwight, commanding the
rear-guard. was wounded and captured. He was presently paroled, and upon the
elevation of Colonel Gordon to a brigadiership Major Dwight was made
Lieutenant-Colonel, and was exchanged in time to join his regiment after the
battle of Cedar Mountain, where it was so
fearfully cut up. The regiment marched with the army into Maryland, and at the
battle of Sharpsburg, after riding triumphantly along the line of his regiment,
showing the men the rebel colors they had taken, he was talking with his
Colonel, when he was struck by a ball. "Colonel, I think I am hit," he said,
reeled, fell, and died after two days.

Wilder Dwight went to the war,
with the clearest knowledge of its object, and of the desperation with which it
was to be fought. With the most cheerful calmness he looked death in the face:
offered his joyous youth, his high hopes, the bright promise of his future, as
so many of his friends had. done, a glad sacrifice to God and his fellow-men,
and God has accepted it. Oh, not in vain! not in vain! The costly heart's-blood
of all these young and brave shall not be wasted. Every sacred drop is counted,
every pang of wound or disease remembered, and the cause of human liberty, which
is the precious care of the country they died to save from the most cruel
barbarism, shall be hallowed forever by the memory of their valor.

OUT OF THE
FOG.

ALL political parties in this
country are now annihilated. They will, of course, retain their old names and
use their old organizations. But the only question now is of the maintenance of
the Government. We are all either for it or against it. If we are for it, it can
be attained only by supporting the constitutional authorities, and the policy
adopted by them. If we are against it, we can serve the cause of disunion only
by resisting the measures of the Government.

By resistance we do not mean
discussion. These columns have always claimed and exercised the right of candid,
loyal debate, just as they have insisted that as in war words are things, the
disloyal speeches of persons like Vallandigham and his fellows should be
suppressed. But a lukewarm, hesitating, doubtful support of the Government, now
that it has declared itself upon the only question about which we differ, is an
unhesitating assistance to the national enemy. And circumstances now compel
every man to declare himself.

Every close observer of affairs
knows that we were drifting in a fog, in which we were likely to be wrecked upon
the shoals of compromise. But the fog is lifted. We see the channel and every
rock and shallow. To drop the figure, the game of the gentlemen who usurp the
name Democratic to annihilate the essential principle of Democracy, was to
clamor loudly in support of the Government whose action they thought to be so
inefficient that it would disgust the people and incline them to believe that
the war could not be successfully ended. They depended upon the fatigue of the
war, upon the pressure of the tax, upon the prostration of general trade, upon
the old cry of abolitionism, upon the new cry of arbitrary oppression, and upon
the feeling of the weakness of the administration, to tire the nation into
asking "how can we make this thing up?"

"If we can only get an
armistice," said these gentlemen, "and persuade Jeff Davis and his States to
send representatives and Senators to Congress, the will try to send enough
'conservative' men to meet them—and to give Davis and Toombs and Floyd and Cobb
and Wigfall and Company the guarantees they want. Then will follow the reaction.
Any allusion to slavery will be stopped every where. The slave States will be a
unit for us. We can count upon the reaction to give us enough power in the free
States, and, presto! we are made men! Then we will undo the doings of the last
Congress, on the ground that grave measures were passed when half of the country
was unrepresented. The bill prohibiting territorial slavery is only an act, and
can be repealed. The
confiscation act tends to exasperate our
lately-goaded brethren—we will strike that off the books. And so, by giving
perpetual guarantees to slavery, and securing its unlimited extension, as our
worthy and fit leader Mr. Seymour advised us to do before the rebellion broke
out, we Democrats, or lovers of the rights of man, will become perpetual cocks
of the walk. The first step to all this is to dishearten the people with the
war. The course of the Government does that, so we will scoff at its incapacity,
but declare that there is nothing left but to support it."

This was the pretty plan.
Suddenly comes what the Herald calls "a burst of sunshine." The fog scatters,
and, not to speak it irreverently, Messrs. Seymour, Wood, and Co. are caught
without their clothes.

GENERAL MITCHELL.

Two years ago next December there
was a famous meeting at the Academy of Music in favor of the Union. Mr. Charles
O'Conor made a speech. He thought the Union endangered by those who insisted
that Justice was good policy, and not by those who denied equality of rights.
The most striking and eloquent speech of the evening, however, was that of
Professor Mitchell, the astronomer, a Kentuckian, and "a conservative," as the
word was technically used.

Professor Mitchell is now General
Mitchell. He is for the Union now, as he was then. Then he thought it could be
saved by words, and his words were fiery. Now he knows that it is to be saved by
war, and his theory of war is that it shall hurt. He has served in the
Southwest, and no general hurt the enemy or thrilled the country with victory
more than he. Why? Because he is thoroughly in earnest: earnest in every
conviction, wish, and aspiration of his soul; in every drop of his blood, in
every muscle, nerve, and fibre of his frame. He believes in the cause as
children in their parents, and Christians in God. He comprehends the scope of
the war: its origin, its purpose, and its awful importance. His words burn. They
go through his men like flames, and they kindle with the purest enthusiasm. He
has the ardor, the conviction, the skill, and rapidity which are irresistible.
If every soldier and every general were like him, the rebellion would be utterly
consumed as by fire.

General Mitchell has lately been
placed in command of the Department of South Carolina, etc. He arrived and
visited every camp and spoke with every regiment. His address to the garrison of
Fort Pulaski is reported; and there has been no such talking to the soldiers in
this war.

" This is a contest for human
freedom: a contest for the absolute supremacy of the people: it is a contest in
which is arrayed absolute liberty on one hand, and on the other the most hateful
and abominable aristocracy."

He told the soldiers their duty
as soldiers, in the clearest and most intelligible manner. He continued:

"A good soldier when he lies down
at night conscious of having performed his duty perfectly don't care whether he
gets up alive or dead. I want you to understand that yon have made a free-will
offering of yourselves to your country, and to the great cause of human liberty.
Your lives are not your own. My life is not my own." * * * *

"Your fortunes are to a certain
extent in my keeping. Rest assured that day and night I shall think of you; day
and night I shall care for you, and your interests shall be in my thoughts. Rest
assured that I shall endeavor to see that you get from the Government all that
it has promised you, punctually and systematically. In return, I shall expect
from you the most complete and perfect service: the most absolute devotion. When
I order you to move, I shall expect you to go forward with spirit and alacrity.
When I ask you to attack yonder battery, I shall expect you to march over it,
and to plant your bayonets beyond it, halting when the word is given, not
before. Now, boys, we understand each other."

Of course they do. There is no
stuff in all this. It is not rhetoric copied from Napoleon's bulletins, which is
time vice of all our military addresses hitherto. These are the words of a man
who is a soldier for a special, heart-felt, and most solemn purpose. They show a
leader who is every inch a man and an American, who knows that this rebellion
must be stricken and annihilated in every form and force, or it will utterly
overthrow the Government either by its arms or its arts.

AN
OBJECTION ANSWERED.

"GRANTING, what no sensible man
will dispute, that the President has the constitutional right and power to issue
a proclamation, is it not likely to be what he said to the Chicago delegation
there was a chance of its being, a Pope's bull against the comet?"

This is a question that many a
loyal man asks himself, and it deserves an answer.

As to the President's
characteristic expression, it will not be forgotten that he said he was
wondering if it might not be so. If he thought it would, he would not issue it.
If he thought it would not, he would issue it. As he has done so, it is very
clear what he thinks upon that point.

But the positive effects of the
step are the declaration of the unhesitating energy and thoroughness with which
the war is to be waged. It is the manifesto of a policy. It is the clear
announcement that the integrity of the Union is more sacred than Slavery. It
says that it will do every thing that it can do to weaken and destroy the
rebellion. It informs the rebels in arms that the Government is as determined as
they are, and the secret friends of the rebels at the North that they can no
longer mask treason in the guise of upholding the President. It sends the
conviction, as with a stream of light into every home and heart in the land,
that this bloody agony of the nation shall not be in vain; that we shall not
have spent these noble lives, nor have quietly endured the restrictions of
speech and the habeas corpus, nor have spent our money and mortgaged that of our
children, merely to have the rebels win by craft what they have lost by cannon.

While in such ways it is a moral
fortification of the Government such as no other step could be, it puts in force
the laws of Congress so that henceforward every slave who falls within our lines
is free; and any General who assumes to send men within the enemy's lines,
either to help them or to be harmed by them, will be disgraced before God and
the country. How infamous the conduct of many an officer has been in this matter
we all know. They have deliberately thrust men who sought their protection back
within the enemy's lines! By what conceivable rule of common sense or of common
honor does a General of the United States send men to the enemies of this
country to be tortured by them? Still more, why does he send the enemy
assistance from our own lines? This stupid crime, at least, is forever stopped.

But while thus the advance of the
army advances the lines of liberty, every slave now knows that they are so
advanced, and that the nearer the army, the nearer his freedom. The advantage of
this knowledge is to be reckoned by every man's common sense. If the
Proclamation had issued before the advance of the Western and Southern armies,
Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi, with Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and
Louisiana, would now be held by native black garrisons. They will be so held in
the future. Why did Jeff Davis so savagely denounce Generals Hunter and Phelps?
Because, as we have said before, he knows what hurts him. He knows where he is
weak and must wince if hit. Now if the proclamation of a General in a
Department, repudiated by the Government, (Next
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